Degree cheats graduate to big time

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Disgraced Maori TV head John Davy. Bogus psychiatrist Linda Astor. Jailed peer Jeffrey Archer. All sailed into positions of authority in their fields. All got those positions with tertiary qualifications they had not earned.

New Zealand's university and polytechnic heads say these cases are symptoms of a far wider problem, but they are powerless against websites that offer authentic-looking degrees in exchange for a credit-card number.

Go to fakedegrees.com and you will find a degree from Victoria University of Wellington. Want an MBA from a leading American university? No problem.

The epidemic of fake degrees has forced tertiary institutions here to try to fight back.

The Committee on University Academic Programmes, a group of academics from all over the country, last month discussed taking legal action against sites offering New Zealand degrees.

It concluded that it would be too costly a move with little chance of success, says New Zealand Vice-Chancellors Committee spokesman Rodney Bryant.

The committee's minutes speak of impotent frustration. The group agreed there was "little we could do, apart from expressing indignation and outrage".

Bryant says the committee's legal fund is "down on reserves" and the trouble with legislation "is that it's hard to pinpoint who's responsible for a website. Who do you serve? How do you handle prosecution?

"We are pondering the sheer size of the problem. The [academic] community is struggling to identify the real impact."

Hope might spring from its Australian counterpart. The Australian VCC is contemplating setting up a national database of all tertiary graduates.

This has happened in the UK, where the Higher Education Statistics Agency set up HE Futures, a centralised service with which employers can check qualifications.

Bryant says academics are also hoping that the impact of fake degrees in New Zealand might be lessened by a Ministry of Education project under which people's "lifetime consumption of education" would be recorded in a database.

Three sorts of fake certificates can be obtained through the internet. Most are offered from the United States.

One type comes from institutions that offer "degrees" for minimal amounts of reading or a cursory assignment. Another offers qualifications ripping off the name and reputation of a legitimate university. The third offers qualifications from a non-existent university.

American "degree mill" buster John Bear, who worked with the FBI on its 1979-1990 DipScam project, says: "One of the most common ploys of counterfeit degree sellers is to combine the name of a large city with the words "state university".

"There are quite a few legitimate universities with this sort of name - like Portland State University - but there have been many fakes over the years, using city names that do not have a legitimate university associated with them.

Among them is "Denver State University", from which John Davy claimed his 1976 master of business administration degree.

He hasn't told the public why he did it, or when. But there's no shortage of advertising - check out the small ads offering higher education in The Economist and other quality magazines. Many of the degrees promoted are worth less than the embossed paper they're printed on.

Bear reckons the FBI stopped its degree-busting programme just at the wrong time - as the internet and colour copiers were becoming widespread.

The universities would agree. Bryant says we live in a social climate where people are increasingly inclined to try to deceive.

Also worrying academics is the burgeoning trade in fake transcripts.

Employers can check degrees with university registrars if they have the information published in convocation (graduation) booklets - full name, degree, date of capping. But they can't see transcripts and in a competitive job market there's a big difference between straight As and a C+ average.

While there is no New Zealand research on the subject, a survey of 1500 companies by British credit reference agency Experian found 21 per cent of employers had discovered job-seekers lying about university qualifications, second only to lies about previous experience.

A survey of 7000 resumes last September by US search company Christian and Timbers found 52 per cent presented a partial degree as a full degree.

Those responsible for peddling fake degrees, and even student IDs, transcripts and "letters of recommendation" from "professors" generally evade prosecution by stating at the point of sale that their products are novelties.

Says cooldegree.com: "Our novelty diplomas are intended for novelty purposes only. We offer these products to boost your self-esteem and improve your image and confidence."

Other countries have refused to accept this explanation. In Britain, education authorities have waged war on Liverpool businessman Peter Leon Quinn, who peddles New Zealand degrees, among others.

British education authorities on behalf of 146 universities obtained a court injunction in 1999 against his fakedegrees.co.uk site, which boasted it was "the largest degree template library in the world".

The court action was a desperate and futile gesture. Quinn is still going - typing in "fakedegrees.co.uk" redirects browsers to a new site. On offer are "all New Zealand degrees at $620 New Zealand dollars, inc. of regular postage. With transcripts, $990."

It gives Western Union's phone number and website address for money transfer.

Quinn appears unrepentant, and ebullient with it.

On the site, he says: "Over the years many clients have sent me sample degrees for me to replicate and 'adjust' to client specification, in many cases to show a more favourable end product which they have felt confident enough to use within their own set of circumstances.

"It is with great personal pride that I have been able to achieve marvellous results and produce some excellent "works of art' ... brilliant degrees that look every much the part, and indeed, have produced positive results for the 'graduate'."

Massey University vice-chancellor James McWha speaks for a lot of irate institutions when he says it is hard to believe that people are paying that sort of cash for "fun".

There is a serious danger that the fake documents could be used to get a job or a postgraduate course at another university.

"When they're unable to do the job properly, then the university that apparently issued them with a degree would be blamed," he says.

The vice-chancellors' committee is looking to the greater clout of the Government in the fight against fake degree peddlers. They identify two bodies, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Commerce Commission.

The NZQA offers a qualification verification service which authenticates degrees and pegs them to New Zealand equivalents. Around 25,000 migrants apply yearly for the $200 service, each bearing "usually 2 1/2 qualifications", says spokesman Bill Lennox.

In the past nine months, the 70 police-trained staff of the Qualification Evaluation Service have processed the claimed qualifications of 17,000 people. Seventy awards were found to be forgeries or fakes.

"The first thing we do is check that it's an authentic qualification," says Lennox. "And we ask for the original certificates. If they don't get it, we don't do the evaluation. If there are doubts about authenticity, we contact the issuing institution."

Employers, he says, should ask job-seekers to furnish an NZQA report if they doubt the story they're being told.

But such a service could be seen as an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff.

Why isn't the NZQA - seen by the public as a gatekeeper in its quality-management of qualifications and awarding institutions - trying to shut sites selling New Zealand degrees at source?

Because that's outside the role defined by the Education Act, says Lennox.

NZQA deals with qualifications awarded in New Zealand, and it can't deal with employers. Checking certificates' authenticity is within its scope - "that's the ultimate safeguard" - but chasing fakers is not.

"Some of the things that happen in education are criminal offences, rather than crimes against the Education Act," he says.

But NZQA views qualifications fakery "with the same level of concern that everybody else is".

From mid-June, all national qualifications will carry a "concealed security device", which he says will make forgery impossible.

What about the Commerce Commission? Citing the Fair Trading Act, it has issued warnings against misrepresentation by education providers this year.

One was Christchurch's Design and Arts College of New Zealand.

Kaikohe-based Planet Career Training and the recently liquidated Christchurch company Careerlink are yet to appear in court.

But fake qualifications? Commission communications manager Jackie Maitland says it "would be concerned about an organisation offering [fake] qualifications. What we look at is the potential for consumer detriment."

And that's not the case when someone buys a bogus degree off the internet. They know the disclaimers are a formality.

The problem is exacerbated by what Bryant calls "credential creep". The baseline for entry into many fields is getting higher, with more study required.

"The temptation is greater when the list of qualifications [required] is greater," he says.

But in a country built on trusting mateship and sustained by myriad small and medium-sized businesses, employers don't always have the resources to outsmart the deliberately deceptive.

Many can't afford to hire employment agencies to do legwork for them. And, as the John Davy case has proved, even that may not be enough.

Full coverage: Maori TV